Chapter 22: My Sworn Brother and I Are in the Same Class

  My mother's clothing store plan fell through, so she continued to help out at my father's restaurant. Then, my second uncle came out of retirement and took over the big market, and my second aunt told my father that she would no longer be working for us. As a token of gratitude for our family taking care of his wife while he was away, my second uncle promised that the produce from the big market would be supplied to my father's restaurant at a lower price than what the vendors were charging before.

  My older cousin took a half-year break, so he was held back for a year and is now in the same grade as me. This is already the second semester of third grade. My older cousin is re-taking the second semester of third grade and it's impossible for him to go back to Pingtouzi Elementary School anymore. My mom asked someone to pull some strings and paid a little less tuition so my older cousin could attend Yangguang Elementary School with me in class 3-2. Today is the first day of school, I brought my older cousin to our familiar school and classroom, walking into the classroom, everyone was as excited as ever, chatting away after the break.

  My older cousin seems to be a bit repelled, ever since my uncle and aunt got divorced. After he had surgery, I feel like he's become a different person, no longer as lively and mischievous as before. Although my mom tries to prevent him from feeling inferior by always having me bring him along and never favoring me over him, there are still some big changes in him. All I can do is hope that time will be the best medicine for all of this. I pulled my cousin into my circle of friends and introduced him to my classmates, who all welcomed him. Yesterday during prep class, I told the teacher about my idea of sitting at the same desk as my cousin, but unfortunately his height puts him in the back rows of our class, while I'm in the front rows. So I had no choice but to ask the teacher to find a new deskmate for him who is easy-going and friendly.

  And I still sit at the same table as Xuan Yuan Ruo, it's really a holiday and I haven't seen him grow taller, it seems that smarter people are like this, it seems that all the nutrients he absorbed have gone to his brain. After each class, I would intentionally or unintentionally go around the area near my brother's seat, fortunately, Shu Gege and Wu Hanwen's seats were close by, otherwise, I would be discovered by my brother as being intentional. Xuan Yuan Ruo also broke with his usual habits and sat down with us to chat, in short, I tried to bring my brother into my circle of friends.

  After school, I walked with my cousin on the road. I asked tentatively: "Cousin, it's your first day of school today, how do you feel? Won't you feel unadapted or a bit strange?"

  "There's no special feeling, just a bit of freshness, and it's a little different from my previous school. Also, I took a half-year break, so I'm full of expectations for school." As he said that, his older brother smiled, with eyes full of anticipation for school life.

  "Oh, that's right, if you have any questions, be sure to ask me, I'm the English class representative in our class, hehe, still a bit of face. You should interact with your classmates more, and you'll find that many people are quite lovely."

  "I see, it seems like you're quite popular among your peers, having many friends. In the future, I'll have to rely on you for support. Once I get familiar with things, I'll be able to take care of you just like before..."

  Days are passing by, and I'm going to school with my cousin, doing homework together, and occasionally discussing topics. I find that my cousin is indeed quite smart, especially in math problems, with strong reverse thinking skills. Those application questions, I always like to set up equations to solve, and then calculate backwards, but my cousin can solve them using existing knowledge. It's purely a waste of time that he didn't do well in his previous life.

  My cousin has also become more outgoing, although not as much as before, but he is willing to interact with more classmates, chat with them, play with them, such as playing marbles, tossing sandbags, slapping cards, and spinning tops. I don't know when Xuan Yuan Rui also became one of them, and the two of them have a suspicion of being sworn brothers. Xuan Yuan Rui also often comes to our house to do homework and play games together because of this relationship.

  They didn't, the two of them finished their homework and went outside to compete in playing with a yo-yo, while I had nothing in common with them. After looking at it for a bit, I found it meaningless, so I went back to my room to play with my doll. It turns out that I am indeed my mother's daughter. Although in the past, my mother always said that I didn't have any feminine qualities, couldn't cook or do household chores, and wasn't good at needlework. But my mother liked fashion design very much and often played with needlework. When cross-stitch was popular, she did cross-stitch; when ribbon embroidery was popular, she did ribbon embroidery, following the trend. This life, I didn't have any toys to play with either. Recently, everyone has been into dressing up dolls, a small doll costs only two yuan and comes with a set of clothes. If we want to dress her up, we naturally need to make some needlework packages and create some small clothes and pants ourselves. After playing for a few days, I found it really interesting and had the urge to make a real piece of clothing if possible. I was hesitant about whether pink or purple would be better, planning to make a long windbreaker for my doll. After deciding, I used small scissors to cut and small needles to sew, and roughly took shape.

  Finally, I just buttoned it up, and suddenly someone whispered in my ear: "I didn't expect you to like the things girls play with too. Let me see, does it really look like that?"

  I turned around to see that it was Xuan Yuan, and I pretended to be very angry, saying: "Why didn't you play with my brother instead of running into my room? Don't you know that a girl's boudoir is not a place for just anyone to enter? And what's with this 'I like the things girls like' nonsense? Of course I like the things girls like, I'm a girl myself! What's so strange about that? Get out quickly, my room is mine to control, and don't let idle people barge in."

  "Haha, I thought you were a quiet and gentle girl just now, but it turns out that's not the case. Didn't you hear the phone ringing downstairs at your place? It was your uncle calling, and your cousin is talking to his dad right now. I couldn't possibly listen in on their conversation, that would be too much of an intrusion."

  "That's true, bothering others is immoral." After saying that, I looked at him, hinting that he was also being immoral now. He didn't know if he hadn't understood or was pretending to be stupid, and continued to say: "Besides, it was your older cousin who asked me to come find you to play together. He even said that when we played table tennis, he completely forgot about you, how embarrassing! You're hiding here enjoying yourself, living a carefree life. As for what you said about being a girl originally, is this the pot calling the kettle black? I didn't say you weren't a girl, but I heard your older cousin say that you usually like to read at home, and even like to read the Four Great Classical Novels and foreign classics. You specially went to the library to get a library card too! Your older cousin also said that you would secretly write something, he took a glance, some of it was diary entries, but some didn't look like diary entries either. He said that you're not like ordinary little girls who would only fiddle with boring things, maybe you'll become a young writer. I'm complimenting you by saying this!"

  I know Xuan Yuan said that with both praise and blame, so he smiled wryly and said: "Well, thank you very much, I'm really interested. How about it? Are you going to bite me?"

  "No, no, no, such a lovely little girl, how can I bear to bite her, just out of curiosity."

  "There's nothing strange about it, my mom loves doing needlework and she even wants to open a clothing store. Her ultimate goal is actually fashion design. Originally, we could have opened a small shop, but because of my cousin...". I turned around and looked back, afraid that my cousin might hear, "Because of funding issues, it's been put on hold for now. Hmm, I really don't know when my mom will be able to find a suitable location to open her own little clothing store."

  "I believe that day is not far away. Auntie will definitely achieve her goal. But I want to ask, have you ever thought of letting others invest and share stocks, with Auntie contributing technology and time management?"

  "Is there such a coincidence? And it's not like manna from heaven. Besides, my old mom is not a professional, she just has a good eye and creativity, she only plans to open a small store first, others won't invest in a small storefront even if they have money."

  "You haven't tried, how do you know it's definitely not going to work? Maybe such a thing will really happen. Now there are many people starting their own businesses, maybe you'll meet someone with the same goals."

  "Maybe, but I guess such things are hard to come by. Forget it, no use daydreaming, just focus on running my old man's small restaurant and earning some real money. Of course, I can also put in some effort." As I thought about this, the idea of plagiarizing from past generations popped into my head, and I couldn't help but smile a bit slyly. However, don't blame me, big brothers, for being despicable just this once - it's all to help my old man and mom realize their dreams sooner. Of course, I'll start by copying from Japan's "Detective Conan", which I was obsessed with in my past life and even watched all the movie versions of. Since Japan is at odds with China over the Diaoyu Islands, I can plagiarize with a clear conscience, humph."

  Xuanyuan Jun waved his hand in front of my face and said, "What are you thinking about? You're also distracted. You just said you wanted to make an effort, what do you plan to do? Tell me, maybe I can help."

  Forget it, how can I tell you? I'm a plagiarist. If you ask me how I know all this, I certainly can't tell you that I'm a reincarnated person, or you'll think I have delusions of grandeur. "It's nothing, just give my dad and mom some ideas for publicity, you know I've got plenty of ideas." Hehehe, Xuan Yuan Ruo didn't ask any further questions.

  At night, I sat in front of the desk, recalling the plot of "Detective Conan" from my previous life. Suddenly, a question occurred to me - when Gosho Aoyama was serializing the manga, it was 1994, which is almost 6 years ago now. If I were to copy it, wouldn't that be copyright infringement? What should I do? What should I do? Should I just give up? I'm not willing to, I'm not willing to.

  Thinking carefully, when I saw the introduction last time, it seemed that Hidenori Kusaka didn't release until 1999 for volume 25, and in China, it was released until 2002. So, I can write the story after volume 25, and also occupy the Chinese market first. Hehe, that's how it is. So, I started writing the story, Hidenori Kusaka with comic form, vivid and lively, my form, giving people infinite imagination, if it becomes popular later, I can add illustrations, that's how it is, I'm too smart. Hehe, seems like I'm too self-loving, purely for plot needs...